Category:Investment and planning

Coordination with land use

Land use can provide a strong supporting role to transit use. Where more transit riders are located closer together, transit can provide service to these riders more efficiently than if they are dispersed. Additionally, more potential riders exist when residents in general are located close to transit. So, transit benefits from more efficient service and from more choice riders in denser land uses. However, the best method to implement this strategy is implemented is up for debate. Is it best to build fixed transit, like rail, and then use zoning and development incentives to guide development in a dense manner around the transit? One study finds it best to build transit in areas where density already exists. Though this strategy may provide the quickest benefits to transit, not many dense places currently exist where transit is not already in place. However, focusing on serving places of interest over a coverage-based system may provide some benefits.
Land use policy as related to parking can be very influential to transit ridership. By making vehicle travel less attractive, parking policy has the potential to shift the mode of many travelers from private vehicle to transit. Parking policy also integrates with dense and mixed land uses and reformed policy can allow denser, more cost-effective developments to be built.